Santa’s elves loved contests.

During the spring and summer, when they were on vacation from toy making, they would watch TV and read magazines and newspapers and enter every contest they saw.

They loved the idea of winning the prizes---free trips to Hawaii, two-wheeled bikes, pet parrots, and a week with their parents in Disneyland, cases of soft drinks, fishing rods and reels, dolls, puzzles, toys of all kinds.

Whatever the prize, the elves were filling out their entries, dropping them in the mail and then waiting for the announcement of the winners.

Santa watched this flurry of activity and remained silent on the subject. But he had mentioned to Mrs. Claus that he didn’t want the elves to be selfish and only thinking of themselves if they happened to win one of these hundreds of contests.

Mrs. Santa not only agreed, she said that she had overheard one of the elves, she thought it was the one they called Generous Gerry, say something to one of the other elves about sharing.

“Well, what did he say?” Santa asked.

“I think he was talking to the elf that the others call Gimmie Jimmie!”

Santa laughed, “Oh yes, I know Gimmie Jimmie, he’s the one when we all sit down to eat who is always grabbing at the big plates of food saying, ‘Gimmie!”

“Yes,” Mrs. Claus said, “And when the elves are sledding in the snow, he’s the one who always has to have the fastest sled and, he’ll take a fast sled from a smaller elf and say, ‘Gimmie!’”

“Well, he’s certainly well-named,” Santa said.

That night, with Christmas just a month away, after a hard day of toy making Santa dozed off in his big chair by the fireplace and when he awoke he had an idea. He wondered, since the elves loved to enter contests, how they would be if they were asked to judge a very important contest.

Then he shared the idea with Mrs. Claus.  “This year we will have each one of the elves go through all the thousands of Christmas letters that come to us from all the boys and girls around the world and pick out what they think is the very best letter,” he said.

“Then what, how will they judge them by---how funny they are, how neat they are written, how clear they are about what they want?  Maybe even extra points for some of those letters that include gingerbread cookies for you and candy canes?” Mrs. Claus asked.  

That’s when Santa laughed. “Well, I’m going to be the final judge. Each elf gives me his or her choice for first then I decide who wins the grand prize!”

Now Mrs., Claus laughed, “Well, if I see any gingerbread in your beard when you make your final judgments I guess I know who the winner will be!”

Santa just laughed and said, “Not at all, not at all!”

The next morning he called all the elves together, reminded them about how much they loved entering contests and told them now they were going to be judging a very important contest---one that would bring the children who wrote the winning letter a grand prize!”

That’s when Gimmie Jimmie elf shouted, “Can we enter, you can gimmie a grand prize anytime you want to!”

Santa just frowned, because his hope was that the winners of this contest would not only set a good example for Gimmie but show all the Children of the World what he thought Christmas should be about.

Well, the letters came flying in bag by bag, week after week. So many letters that D. Liver, Santa’s postal elf, strained his back lifting the letters and then fogged his glasses as he tried to organize the letters in a way that the elves could come and read them, and then make their decision.

“Will there be a prize for us if our chosen letter is the one you chose as the best,” Gimmie asked Santa.

“No! Gimmie, there won’t be, but the child or children in the same house whose letter is chosen will win the grand prize!”

“And what will their prize be?” Gimmie asked angrily kicking his tiny pointed shoe into a snowbank!

“They will be flown to the North Pole and ride with me in the sleigh until we come to their home---wherever they happen to live,” Santa said.

“That’s a pretty nice prize,” Gimmie said.

The night of the judging Gimmie was first in line. “Now, here’s the letter I chose, see what you think!” he said.

Santa just shook his head. The letter Gimmie chose was fifteen pages long, listing almost a hundred toys!

“Your choice of a good letter doesn’t surprise me at all,” Santa said with a frown.

Then he looked down at his kitchen table and along with Mrs. Santa he counted the letters that the elves had submitted.  “Well, they’re all here,” she said, “Except I don’t see Poky elf’s choice!”

“Now, that’s not a surprise, Poky is always last,” Santa said.  That night Mr. and Mrs. Santa read every letter that the elves submitted.

Mrs. Claus thought that the letter from the little boy who drew very neat pictures of the toys he wanted might be a winner.  Then she liked the letter that had a little girl hugging a Santa in a Home Depot store.

“Here’s another good one,” she said, “A little boy wants two monkeys because he’s afraid that one monkey would be lonely!”

Santa laughed and wiped a few crumbs of gingerbread out of his big white beard.

That’s when Mrs. Claus, said, “uh- oh! I bet that one you just opened with the cookies will be the winner!”

Santa looked rather sad, and he said, “You know, we’ve read all the letters---you’ve read everyone in your stack and so have I.  I’m very disappointed; I don’t think we have a winner here!”

And just as he said that here came Poky with his choice of letters. “Sorry, I’m running a bit late today,” Poky said. “Here’s your winner---a letter worth waiting for!”

Santa stroked his beard, opened the letter and as he read he began to smile. Finally! He looked at Mrs. Claus and said, “Listen to this. We have a winner!”

Dear Santa:

We want toys for Christmas, but before we even mention what we would like we want you to do us a favor.  We want you to makes sure that before you get to our list of toys that all the boys and girls in the world get their Christmas wishes.

We have been talking about this and we know that we are very lucky children and have so many wonderful things---but most of all we have wonderful parents---a great mommy and daddy.

We have a playhouse, a little electric car, little friends that we sleep and play with, like the Mulligan pups, and Jeffery the Monkey, a toy owl named Hedwig and a little guy from Harry Potter named Dobby.

So you will see a few of our Christmas wishes at the bottom of this letter but please remember this:  take care of all the other children first. Here at our house it’s like Christmas every day.

Love Jack and Julia

P.S.  We read this in a magazine called THE NORTH POLE “Meet the Elves.”

Is it true that you have a rather stingy elf named Gimmie?  If that’s true tell him that Jack and Julia said, “Quit being so grabby. That’s not what Christmas is about!

Santa put down the letter and gave Mrs. Claus a hug. “Well dear, I think we’re going to be putting some extra hot chocolate and sandwiches and big blankets in the Sleigh this year---Jack and Julia, two very generous children will be going for a wonderful---one of a kind---Christmas sleigh ride!